danefan

With respect to all those good new things—coach/stadium/conference—can anyone explain how this is all happening? We seem to be suddenly drawing students away from teams with far bigger profiles, far bigger stadiums! Is it about more playing time, or is there some other new buzz? While new for us, it's not rare for kids to turn down MAC scholarship offers to play in the CAA. The gap between the CAA and the MAC is not very big despite what I'm sure our Buffalo friends will say here shortly. Turning down Boston College is another thing. That's straight up good recruiting.

Football has it's own strength coach.

Not only after a 1-11 season but with a coaching change everything is fair game. Even Osbourne who was 1st team all CAA. You can never rest on your laurels in Division I.

Registration and Sponsorship Information is available for the 2014 Football Alumni & FRIENDS Golf Outing. I put the emphasis on Friends for a reason. Everyone is welcome to golf and/or purchase a sponsorship package. More information is available here: http://www.ualbanyfootballalumni.org It may be early, but we expect to sell out our golfer slots well in advance of the registration deadline.

I understand the OOC is not finalized yet. Shooting for 7 home games this year. Unlikely to see an FBS game this year though.

Shanley needs to work on his release but he throws a nice ball. He's also played against the best high school competition in the country and played with one of the, if not the best high school player in the country (Jabrill Peppers #5 in his video). He won't be phased by anything at Albany. He's played high school games in prime time on ESPN and multiple games in an NFL stadium. A frosh QB could challenge for playing time right away. The vets won't have too much of an advantage in knowledge. A new offensive scheme is going in in the spring.

Happy he stuck with it then.

Looks guys it's all politics. This money is going to be spent in central NY one way or another. It's not a question of SUNY vs private schools. It's a question what do your local representatives want to fight for? The local Albany contingent has never stuck their necks out for anything. And don't tell me $18m is sticking your neck out. It's chump change.

Powell is a beast. I'm seriously impressed by this class. Wow. And Gattuso didn't even have a full recruiting season. He had a couple of trips and they had recruits on campus this weekend for the final push. Holy Cow.

Look at us in particular. Much too high a concentration in NYS. Not nearly enough in PA, Ohio, Maryland, etc... Don't have too go far, but need to get out of NY a little more. A couple years in the CAA and Gattuso's networks in PA and MD should help that. We've only got one CAA recruiting class in.

Probably not that much because each unit is focusing on the other team. There are scout teams of course, but usually made up of inexperienced freshman coached by the GA's. That's what I figured, but if us bozos in the stands think our offense is too predictable, what would convince the coaching staff? Give them a defensive team's scouting report on us. Hopefully going 1-11.

Probably not that much because each unit is focusing on the other team. There are scout teams of course, but usually made up of inexperienced freshman coached by the GA's.

I disagree. I think you'll see a simplification of the offense which i think will help. Our red zone troubles this year were in large part due to trying to do too much. Maybe this will put some toughness back in our offense.

http://www.ualbanysports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=70366&SPID=8009&DB_LANG=C&ATCLID=209372013&DB_OEM_ID=15800 ALBANY, N.Y. – Newly appointed University at Albany head football coach Greg Gattuso has announced the addition of Bob Benson, Joe Bernard, Bernard Clark, and Jim Sweeney to his staff for the 2014 season.

Here's a good article on recruiting and why you shouldn't get caught up in internet ratings. Its about George O'Leary and his recruiting philosophy at UCF which just upset Baylor in the Fiesta Bowl with a bunch of "unheralded" recruits. http://coachingsearch.com/article?a=UCF-George-OLeary-A-lot-of-coaches-recruit-stars-and-get-fired-in-3-years

I missed the end of the game..... So glad our homecoming opponent is playing for a national championship. They have a shot! North Dakota State is a beast of a team, but I think Towson has a chance.

The NDSU defense is unbelievably good. Just squeeze the life out of you. The home field advantage doesn't hurt either. I think Towson could beat them though. Nothing equalizes a strong defense like a strong run game. Battle in the trenches. Let's root for Towson today!

I believe ESPNU

Correct which is why those recruiting ratings are BS.

Standards of accounting and NCAA athletics are like oil and water. The Knight Commission numbers are based on self-reported figures that the schools provide to the Department of Education. You can see every school (public and private) here: http://www.ope.ed.gov/athletics/Index.aspx?DB_OEM_ID=15800 They are extremely misleading, in my opinion. For one, most schools (but not all) count funding provided by the university as "revenue". Meaning they all generally break even. Simple example: Costs University Athletic Department X $100 to run a program. They generate $50 from guarantee games and ticket sales. The remaining $50 comes from the University operation budget. They will report $100 expenses and $100 revenue on the EADA report. From one hand to the other.

My take is that UAlbany is becoming a big time football program at this level (or at least that's how we are perceived by the writer) and is actually a good thing. If the media perceives UA as a football "power house" or a bigtime program which is where they are headed, many more articles will emerge along these lines. The articles will be good and bad but the bottom line looks like UA football is being re-branded and you cant ask for anything better than that. I'm not sure I follow... Any publicity is good publicity.

That Maryland connection is working out.....

I'm honestly not sure what to think. His data is half-bakes...like all Knight Commision reports are. But even with that bad comparative data, he still basically concludes that Albany spends no where near what most of our peers do. It is what it is though.....money is not infinite. If we're going to spend more money on football, we're going to spend less money on something else. I don't know if it's a direct inverse correlation to academic spending. Maybe it's a reallocation from something else? An improved efficiency that frees up dollars? We all know there is bloat in the SUNY system. The one thing I did like was McElroy and Jones's comments. Yes Pete.....we're going to spend more and we're not going to apologize for it.

The numbers he quotes and that are on the site are public schools only.

http://www.timesunion.com/sports/article/Iorizzo-Pursuit-of-wins-not-done-at-all-cost-5065387.php